Wednesday, December 22, 2010

China Ghosts--a book response

When Scott Simon's memoir, "Baby, We Were Meant for Each Other", came out I could not understand why people disliked it so much.  After all I am fascinated by everyone's journey to their children.  Now that I have read "China Ghosts: My Daughter's Journey to America, My Passage to Fatherhood" by Jeff Gammage I see what people may have meant by calling Simon's book fluffy.  After reading "China Ghosts" I can almost agree when people say we do not need another Chinese Adoption Memoir.

Superficially the books are the same.  They are both male reporters who adopt two little girls from China and have their lives profoundly impacted by becoming fathers.  However, while I was perfectly content analyzing Simon's book and picking and choosing which parts were interesting and being annoyed by his occasional apparent flippancy, I am hesitant to do the same to "China Ghosts."  This book is too beautiful to nit-pick, to deep to summarize, and too complete to need more.  There are lots of great memoirs worth reading including Simon's, but this one--this one touches my soul.
Photobucket

No comments: